As victims quit paying, ransomware becomes less profitable.

The majority of victims reportedly refuse to pay a ransom today.

The amount of money that ransomware(opens in new tab) assaults were used to extort from organizations is down 40% year over year, showing that more companies are choosing not to pay to get their sensitive data recovered.

A Chainalysis research looked at cryptocurrency wallets linked to ransomware organizations. All blockchain data is pseudonymous, thus on-chain tracking of wallet activity is simple. Because fraudsters must share their wallets with their victims, it is quite simple to follow these wallets.

However, Chainalysis reports that in 2022, wallets associated with well-known ransomware organizations stored a total of $456.8 million. These organizations demanded $766 million in ransom the previous year $765 million is about comparable to the amount for 2020.

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It's also intriguing that one ransomware gang, or affiliate, does not always operate with the same ransomware type. The identical wallets were actually seen accepting payments from individuals who had been infected with several malware strains, including as Conti, BlackCat, Black Lotus, LockBit, Sunscript, Hive, and others.

The study contains a warning that the statistics are almost certainly inconclusive. While it is quite simple for the researchers to monitor wallet activity, it is impossible to state with certainty whether they discovered and were monitoring all of them.

Since some businesses do not acknowledge becoming victims of this type of cybercrime, it is likely that new wallets will appear in the future.